


mære

by zipegs



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Sleep Deprivation, implied/referenced Sophia Cracroft/Captain Francis Crozier, one instance of mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 23:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21107645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zipegs/pseuds/zipegs
Summary: Sophia rests her head against the back of the sofa and tries to stay awake.Written for Halloween Terrorfest day 2: never sleep again





	mære

It’s dark.

Outside, the sky is clotted with clouds. Nary a sliver of sun manages to rupture the grey mass; it seems closer to evening than mid-morning.

Sophia reclines on the sofa, nearly boneless, neck as wobbly as a newborn babe’s. She rests her head on its back and watches the room whirl like a cyclone around her.

It is difficult to concentrate; her head is swimming, and _things_ keep skittering in and out of the corner of her eye, dark shapes which vanish like smoke when she turns to look at them. Unease crawls up her spine. She tries to focus on the rain streaming down the thick glass window, to clear her mind and tether herself to wakefulness.

Black spots bloom like spores in her field of vision.

In the corner of the room, Lady Jane is scribbling away at her desk. Her pen scratches against the paper in a rapid, grating cadence.

Sophia does not know to whom she might still write; the whole of London is surely drowning in letters by now. She wonders how many years will pass before Lady Jane accepts the truth: that they have lost the men they love.

Or could have loved, had they given themselves the chance.

“—Sophy.”

She blinks. Lady Jane has twisted around in her chair, her sharp gaze hooked into Sophia’s temple. 

On the mantle, the clock ticks away the seconds with thick, dull clicks.

She has a sudden, dizzying sense of déjà vu.

Hands clenched tightly in her lap, Sophia digs her nails into the meat of her palm. She pictures her skin splitting with a soft pop, like that of a plum, her fingers touching upon the cool, wet flesh beneath.

She compels herself to hum in acknowledgement, gaze sliding sloppily over to her aunt.

“You look quite poorly, my dear; I do wish you would tell me what it is that ails you.”

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

Lady Jane’s hands are perched on the back of her chair. Her fingertips are mottled black with ink.

“It’s nothing, Auntie.” It takes all her willpower not to peek at the clock and number the hours left until nightfall descends upon her. She stares instead at the dark stains marring her aunt’s hands. Beneath her dress, Sophia’s chemise is sticking to her skin with sweat. “I’ve not been sleeping well—that’s all.”

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

“Well,” Lady Jane says, the smile on her face as brittle as spun sugar, “perhaps we ought to see about getting you some laudanum.”

She turns back to her desk.

Sophia looks out the window and tries to watch the rain.

\---

When night comes—for it always does—Sophia leaves her aunt hunched over the writing desk and glides up to her room. While the sconces along the stairway and second-floor hall are perpetually lit, as she has impressed upon the servants her dire need for light, it is an eerie sort of illumination. They cast quivering shadows upon the walls, and the entire house seems to undulate under their weight. Carpets roll beneath her feet like ocean waves, walls tilt inward and outward again, their middles swelling as though drawing breath. It seems the building comes alive; Sophia watches the wallpaper shimmer and ripple and struggles to keep her breathing even.

In her room, it is all the worse. She draws the scattered lamps and candles closer to her bed, collecting them in a discordant array on her bedside table, like a mismatched army of melted wax and soot-stained glass. They cluster there, a horde of gold bases gleaming in the light. Barely an inch of polished mahogany is visible beneath them. 

Sophia draws her pillow to the edge of the bed and curls up beside them, so close she can feel the slow pulse of their heat. It tightens the skin of her forehead and spreads hot and dry over her face, as though turning her flesh to leather. She stares at the flames until cyan after-images of their shapes dance with the red and yellow light.

Yet with all the light concentrated in this one spot, shielding her head and torso in a blister of warmth, there is nothing left to disperse the shadows past the foot of the bed. Beyond it lies an impenetrable expanse of darkness, vague charcoal shapes and silhouettes assuming sinister postures in their ambiguity. Beneath her, the bed rocks gently, stirred into motion by the soft sway of exhaustion.

_I am not afraid,_ Sophia thinks desperately, eyes bleary and unfocused. Want of sleep lies heavy over her, and beneath it, the pungent scent of her own terror.

_I am not— _

\---

Against a monochromatic backdrop of jagged grey, like clusters of coal whose edges are ridged and feral, Francis stands alone. He is smothered by a starless night—Sophia feels it around them like a thick velvet blanket, although there is no warmth to be taken from it. The wind seems to moan, and beneath their feet, the ice grunts and rumbles.

Francis is clad not in his naval uniform but in shirtsleeves, his mauve waistcoat—the one dappled with blue flowers—and freshly pressed trousers. His polished dress shoes glint green with the light of the Aurora Borealis. It writhes above them, emerald threads casting shadows that shift and crawl over Francis’s face.

Sophia’s heart stutters in her chest.

Fear forces cold hands beneath her ribs. 

This is not Francis. It is some other creature, some monster in human form—it must be.

He stands unnaturally still, gaze fixed unflinchingly upon her—she feels it spread throughout her body like pitch, thickening her blood and turning her limbs to lead.

There is no warmth in him.

His eyes are so dark they swallow all the light from his face, drinking in the green glow of the Northern Lights so completely that they give back no reflection, no shine.

Sophia cannot breathe.

She feels terror tighten like a vice around her chest; Francis seems to be on the verge of _saying _something, of _doing _something. It’s as though she is leaning further and further over the edge of a cliff, her heart crawling up into her throat, waiting to fall.

But Francis is still as ever, the only movement the slow undulation of green across his face, his clothes.

_Wake up,_ she thinks desperately, squeezing her eyes shut. _You’ve got to wake up_.

Francis’s maw cracks slowly open, growing impossibly wide, like a snake unhinging its jaw. Panic pierces Sophia’s breast. She hears a hitching sob—her own, she realizes, quivering its way free of her throat. Her hands fly up to shield her eyes, palms pressing them inward to the point of pain, but she can still _see _him, as though her own flesh has turned transparent.

Francis takes a step closer, and then another. Suddenly, he is upon her, arms outstretched. His icy fingers, sharp like talons, graze her biceps, his eyes and mouth three gaping holes in his skull, and—

Sophia wakes, weeping.

The candles on the table beside her have withered into cold stubs. She lurches for them, fumbling with the matchbox, but her hands are shaking, fright making her hasty and uncoordinated.

_Let it be over, _she begs silently, burying her face in her shoulder as though she might find solace there.

The dawn does not listen.

\---

When she enters the sitting room the next morning, Lady Jane is already seated at the desk.

Her pen scratches against paper, fingers smudged black with ink.

The clock on the mantle is ticking.

_Click_.

_Click._

_Click_.

Sophia rests her head against the back of the sofa and tries to stay awake.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank-yous to [vegetas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegetas/pseuds/vegetas) for her encouragement and [strangeallure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeallure) for betaing!


End file.
